I am new to this, what is YR and YQ?

What rule is that?

Carrier surcharges, typically fuel fines.

Yes, the tool did the booking with QF (I'm yet to get the ticket)

From the rule sheetI have always taken this to mean 5% of the base fare and full refund of the taxes and surcharges., Perhaps I'm mistaken? (I never cancelled a RTW ticket before)

It's not a rule, meaning part of the fare rules
but it is a known restriction of the on-line booking tool

So, you can have a QR flight as the first flight, but then you cannot book it using the tool.

My guess it's open to carrier interpretation, but I hope you're right.

That's an important clarification to steveholt's comment.

So I've been playing around with this quite a bit, with the online tool, SABRE and with the AA desk. ex-CAI different airlines have published different fares. It appears QR and AA have published fares in USD while the rest are publishing in EGP. Further, it appears that the fare selected is based on the "dominant" carrier, which seems to be the first overwater/long-haul carrier OR the first carrier. For me here's what I saw:

CAI-xDOH-DXB-xLHR-PMI-xMAD-DFW-GRU-JFK-xHKG-DXB - priced out at USD $6K+
but changing it to
CAI-xLHR-PMI-xMAD-DFW-GRU-JFK-xHKG-DXB (and ensuring that I only use BA, IB and CX for the over water segments) - priced this at $3442. (validating on CX)

If I used the AA flight from MAD to DFW - it prices using AA base fare (>$7k), if I use QR in the first segment it uses QR base fare (>$5k).

With these restrictions in mind - I was able to get the AA desk to price the itinerary at around $3,800 (validating/ticketing on AA) - higher YQ and taxes but perhaps worth it to deal with the AA RTW.

Good luck

Based on your finding, with my routing below, the major carrier would be QR (PRG - xDOH - KUL) or CX (KUL - xHKG - LAX)?
CAI - xMAD - PRG (IB)
PRG - xDOH - KUL (QR)
KUL - NRT (MH)
HND - GMP (JL)
ICN - KUL (MH)
KUL - xHKG - LAX (CX)
LAX - SFO (AA)
SFO - JFK (AA)
JFK - DFW (AA)
DFW - DOH (QR)

I asked Qantas to price the following DONE4:

CAI-xDOH-DFW-xANC (AA codes)
ANC-ORD
ORD-SJU
SJU-CLT
CLT-MEX
MEX-JFK
JFK-SYD
SYD-BLR
BLR-KUL
KUL-HKG (CX)
HKG-xLHR-CDG (BA)
CDG-xDOH-AMM (QR)

First, Qantas said CAI-DOH had to be on the QR code if I wanted A. I could book the AA code, but I'd be in H.

Second, Qantas said I must end in CAI. The agent I spoke with was fully aware of the Middle East exception (among the others) but he insisted five "senior ticketing agents" had all looked at the rules and said I must in CAI. More concerning, he said the oneworld desk also supported that position.

It was priced at AUD8403. The highest YQ charges were $1394 and $636 and the highest YR was $715. The agent I spoke with didn't know where exactly they came from, though.

This is true, from what I found in Sabre. It looks like the QR flight number is allowed to be in A for the DONEx fares, but not the AA flight number. If you use the AA flight number, it prices as AONEx. Of course any airline can override that, but apparenty QF does not want to.
We all know that isn't true, but not much you can do if QF says that and you want QF to ticket it.

Hold up, which itinerary were you able to get AA to price at $3800? I was looking at one yesterday that QF would have been ticketing for closer to $4800 so didn't bite. For $3800 I would. Would be looking at a DONE4 just like you have posted but would be doing Africa instead of South America. But I'd want JL and QR for my long segments intra-Asia and to/from Asia. Will have to suck it up and take an AA overwater, maybe MAD or LHR to get AA to ticket it.

Need some advice
I am almost done with my itinerary, just pending one final date confirmation.
I reach the booking page with credit card details, am I right to assume once I click submit, the payment will be automatically effected? or i still need to talk to airlines to get it ticketed?
When you guys mentioned ticketing, does it mean you are talking to airlines service agent to get the ticket issue instead of through the rtw page?
thanks a million

on the RTW tool, directly ticketed. Won�t even ask for VbV (I had to call QF and wrangle for a cancel)

As soon as I hit enter on cc payment it said your flight is booked. I got an email messgae from QF Later asking to complete mY US stopover address details and residency etc but it went through. I only spoke to a qf agent today out of an abundance of caution to triple check it had gone through OK.

Few points:

When I was dealing with a medical issue a few weeks back QF confirmed to me the refund charge is 5% of the base fare - 100% of taxes would get refunded. So you might need to HUCA, but right now looks like refund charge is < 200 USD.

Does anyone have a list of what jacks the YR/YQ charges? So far, it seems to be:

• any BA segment (using AT or IB out of CAI lowers it significantly)
• any QR segment
• any QF segment - especially longhauls

Depends on the ticketing airline, QF will ticket immediately, CX requires a phone call and website payment, but you have to have CX as your first segment to get the tool to use CX.